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My two year experience with Tablets

iPad / iPad Mini / Kindle Fire

It’s been a while since I’ve written an article for my blog. On one hand, I have many different thoughts on a variety of topics that I want to share. On the other hand, the last months were quite stressful for tme. A myriad of interesting design projects had (and still have) to be completed. Due to a cold, I was forced to slow down a little and I spontaneously decided now to continue.

So now a new post. Since it took a long time to write a review on my two little companions, why now? Why not a review immediately after a few weeks of release?

I have to say I don’t like to evaluate new equipment immediately after release. There are so many expectations associated with the devices. It sounds a little crazy, but I am skeptical about new devices, which are often not yet mature, often expensive and very complex equipped. I often lose interest in devices, because they do not meet my expectations.

I thought about the iPad about 2 years before deciding to get one. I had actually only 3 expectations to the device:

Reading

I was tired reading my Smashing Magazine books as a PDF on my notebook (or even on my smartphone!). My favorite blogs like Pinterest, Pocket, Zite can be much better enjoyed on the couch, because I spend far too much time a day in front of a job. Longer photo articles and galleries are pleasure for the eyes reading them on my iPad. I love to wipe from one page to another, zoom in and out, sharing interesting stuff to friends and colleagues. I wanted to read books only in exceptional cases on the iPad unless they have great illustrations. Otherwise I would probably to use my Kindle for reading books as far as I had done for almost a year (here I have been mistaken basically).

Digital editions for comics have also become interesting regarding the price, so I started recentlly to get comic books as a digital version. They might be readable only on a 10-inch tablet. Don’t tell me it might work on 7-inch or smaller device. Trying to read a comic smaller than a paperback book is useless for me to read. Try to read Jeffrey Brown’s “Unlikely” or “The Complete Peanuts” be Fantagraphics on a 7-inch Kindle for instance). My concern is reading comics, and not the presentation of the drawings in comics.

Almost every day you can get the printed daily news of the Süddeutsche Zeitung (daily newspaper in munich) at the Munich Main Station for free. I wonder seriously, who has the time to read 100 pages in huge tabloid format. Not that I want to make editorial contributions bad. The SZ is still the best daily newspaper I know. I simply just can’t spend a couple of hours ti read it.

I’m afraid there are probably few, if only 1-2 local newspapers remain in the coming years. New readers can not be won. I even notice it by myself. The Internet has become so important if you know where to look.

Watching movies

I’m a big fan of movies. I own a huge collection of films. Video streaming via subscription still isn’t quite popular in Germany, but Watchever started with a good mix of classic movies, and TV series (It is a pleasure to watch Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Orson Welles, Robert de Niro – and Will Shatner – unsynchronized.

I gave Amazon Prime a chance for one year. The reason was trivial. They had Star Trek the Original Series in their program.

Drawing

I still do scetches on paper quicker than on a tablet. Until recently my favorite presentation app was Penultimate. Since a major update a year ago the app sucks now. I used Penultimate mainly in order to comment web design screenshots, or drawing quick ideas.

The most intuitive and beautiful app to do drawings and colorize them still seems to be Paper. Without hesitation, I bought the complete drawing and pencil tools. I was surprised how well you can draw in watercolor style, which can serve for my ideas perfectly. I don’t create drawings completely on mobile devices, but I know some guys who have reached such a perfection, that they completely draw digitally.

“iPad is …”

I am still amazed at how incredibly diverse I use my two iPads every day. The expectation and the resulting use has changed over time, but thanks to the great integration of hardware and software it fits always automatically for my concerns.

Steve Jobs while presenting the iPad in San Francisco on 27th January 2010 (watch keynote)

Sometimes it sound so very simple: As long as digital content is created,distributed and show, the iPad has my full attention, like Steve Jobs said in 1983:

“Strategy is really simple.
What we want to do is
we want to put an
incredibly great computer
in a book that you can
carry around with you and
learn how to use in 20
minutes … and we really
want to do it with a radio
link in it so you don’t
have to hook up to
anything and you’re in
communication with all
of these larger databases
and other computers.”